Thursday, September 15, 2005

By Greg ReevesThe lack of a minimum age for marriage in Kansas got a lot of attention recently with the case of Nebraskan Matthew Koso, 22, who showed up in Kansas to marry his pregnant 14-year-old girlfriend (left, with Koso) in May. Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning rewarded the father-to-be with a rape charge.Koso's young wife gave birth a 7 lb, 1 oz girl Aug. 24. Koso faces 50 years in prison on the charge of first-degree sexual assault. This is a case worth watching.Read Star reporter Scott Canon's excellent story and a more recent take by LA lawyer and radio news-talk personality Bill Handel, an expert on reproductive technology.

By Greg ReevesWe did a little more number-crunching with new CDC data on sexual activity of persons 15-44 in the U.S. See previous post.Here's a tally of 15-year-olds having sex - from what we can tell, illegal in every state (Chart may appear far below in some browsers)

By Greg ReevesThat's just our favorite old newspaper headline, but it fits - The CDC today released advance data from a massive study of sexual behavior of persons 15-44 in the U.S. Whew! What you may or may not want to know is here.Since this is a crime blog, we have focused on sexual behavior known to be criminal. Age-of-consent laws vary from state to state, but nowhere is it less than 16, according to this guy and a 3-minute look at Wikipedia's exhausting age-of-consent page.So here are the numbers on 15-year-olds (and sometimes underage 16- and 17-year-olds) having (criminal) sex: (Table may appear far down in some browsers)